Marty's (Main) Room
In our Main Room, prices are way below what used book stores charge.
Hardcover books start at $1.00 and softcover books start at only 50
cents.

NO NUMBERS WILL BE ISSUED FOR NON-MEMBERS FOR THIS SALE ONLY. IF YOU
ARE NOT A FOPAL MEMBER SIMPLY SHOW UP AT 11AM.

Please note that due to crowding during the first two hours of the
Book Sale, no strollers, rolling carts, etc. can be brought into the
Main Room. This is for the safety of shoppers and volunteers alike.
By 12:30 or so, the crowd thins out and shoppers are welcome to bring
these items into the sale.

Children's Book Sale
The Children's Room is located in the portable formerly occupied by
the Jewish Community Center next to the soccer field. It is entirely
filled with children's books and toys. You'll find picture books,
school age fiction and non-fiction, award winners, non-English titles,
CDs and DVDs, and books for parents and teachers, most for 50 cents
or $1. Strollers are welcome in the Children's Room at any time.

Bargain Books in H-2
The Bargain Room is located in Rooms H-2 and H-3 of the Cubberley
main campus, between Marty's Room and Middlefield Road. On Saturday,
paperbacks are 50 cents, hardcovers are $1, and children's books are
50 cents each. The room also contains many LP records and 78s at
$1 each. On Sunday, the room opens at 11 am and all prices are half
off. Or, save even more on Sunday by buying grocery bags from us for
$5 each and stuffing them with any items in the room. Buy 4 bags and
get the 5th one FREE!

Library Closings for Christmas, New Year's Holidays

All libraries will close at 6pm on Tuesday, December 24 for the
Christmas holiday, remaining closed through Wednesday, December 25.
Normal hours will resume on Thursday, December 26.

All libraries will close again at 6pm on Tuesday, December 31 for the
New Year's holiday, remaining closed through Wednesday, January 1.
Normal hours will resume on Thursday, January 2, 2014.

You can find out about closings and other Palo Alto Library events
on the Library's event calendar.

Friends Bookstore in Downtown Library

If you cannot attend the book sale, please drop by the Friends
Bookstore located inside the Downtown Library and open during
library hours. It is restocked regularly with a unique selection
of books for all ages and interests.

FOPAL Book Sale Notices Now on Twitter

You can now follow us on Twitter @fopalbooks.
We'll post Sale notices and will reveal the Sunday 50% off
section via our Twitter feed.

Non-Profit Book Giveaway

Non-profit organizations and schools are able to select books
from among the thousands of books available in the Bargain Room
on the Sunday evening following the sale from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm.
If you are associated with a non-profit organization or school
that would like to receive books from us for free or for
information on eligibility, hours, and the types of materials
available, please contact Norma Burchard in advance by e-mail
at normalcy@earthlink.net or at (650) 494-1082.
Several dozen organizations benefit from the monthly giveaways,
including local hospitals, homeless programs, senior centers,
schools, and jails, as well as libraries in rural areas and on
reservations, and literacy projects in many other countries.

This is still true in 2013! It's because of this truth that FOPAL
continues encouraging checking the value of uncommon books on the
internet so that they can be given a price which is fair to our
customers and high enough to ensure the Friends are maximizing
their sales revenue.

This is why our Main Room book sale customers are likely to see some
books priced higher than the Bargain Room prices of $1 for a hardback
and 50 cents for a paperback. A suggested pricing guideline for
pricing book using internet research is one-third to one-half of the
on-line asking prices given the criteria of publisher, date, edition,
signed copy, condition, and availability. So, if you see a book
priced for $10 at a monthly sale, chances are this book would sell
on-line for at least $30. That being said some books warrant higher
prices, but are still a great deal to our "collecting and reader"
customers.

One of FOPAL's challenges is to recognize those books that might be
even more out-of-ordinary and of unusually high value say...where
the Internet price is over $40.00. Now once these books have been
identified, FOPAL then looks for other markets for them where they
can be sold at prices well above what we might price and sell them
for our monthly sale. FOPAL not only sells at sells books at the
monthly sale but also at the Friends Kiosk (Downtown library) at
auction and on-line.

If you can't attend the monthly sale, please drop by the Friends
Kiosk located in the Downtown library during library hours. Books
are priced $1 for hardbacks and 50 cents for paperbacks. The Friends
Kiosk is restocked regularly with books for all interests. Or, shop
our on-line book store http://www.amazon.com/shops/grandmabetsybooks.
All proceeds from book sales benefit the Palo Alto Libraries.

A Reminder

Please, no outside food or drink in FOPAL Book Sale rooms.

Suggestions?

We're always eager to hear your suggestions for ways to improve our
book sale. Please email us at
suggestions@friendspaloaltolib.org or mention them to a volunteer at the sale.

Members Early Sale Saturday December 14

The annual Members Early sale is scheduled for Saturday December 14.
If you're a member of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library, you'll
be able to get in to the Main Room early! At this once-a-year event,
Life Members are allowed to enter the sale at 9am and can purchase up
to 50 books. Members at all other levels can enter the sale at 10am
and purchase the normal 12 books at a time. Enjoy a less crowded main
book room and get first crack at our wonderful collection of
materials. Books are always a welcome Holiday treat!

And...for members, another special treat, artisan roasted coffee will
be offered by long-time volunteer and coffee connoisseur Dean Ujihara.
Here a list of the coffees he will likely roast for this Saturday's
sale. They all come from Sweet Maria's:

Tickets for early arrivers are handled differently at the Members
Early sale. Tickets given out are for the 9am and 10am lines at the
Main Room, since most people who come early are Members of the
Friends. Each Member will get just one ticket, although Members at
and above the $30 levels may bring in their families, consisting of
one or two adults and children. No tickets will be given out for
the 11am line.

The music and dance book section covers a variety of dance and
musical styles, from belly dancing to ballet and from Mozart to
Lennon. Here are some of this month's new titles:

Dancers Among Us: A Celebration of Joy in the Everyday
by Jordan Matter

Breaking Bounds: The Dance Photography of Lois Greenfield
by William Ewing and Lois Greenfield

This Land was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie
by Elizabeth Partridge

The Acoustical Foundations of Music by John Backus

And do you also play the violin? by Carl Flesch

88: The Giants of Jazz Piano by Doesrschuk, Robert L. and
Keith Jarrett

Music Game Book: A World History of 20th Century Music by
David Fricke, Jean-Jacques Groleau, Thomas Mahler and Patrick
Tchiakpe

My favorite book of the month is Give Out! Songs of, for and by
the Men in the Service by Eric (et) Posselt. This book is from
1943 and not in good condition but it has charming illustrations and
songs that reflect the military of those years. -Charlotte Epstein

Greeting Cards

Greeting cards in ALL categories including holiday can be found
outside the main room at bargain prices. Greeting card price
will increase to 50 cents per card in 2014. Get your cards this
month at unbelievable prices. -Marda Buchholz

Oh What Fun-Historical Fiction

Historical fiction has been expanding in popularity and our
Historical Fiction section is also expanding. This month we
have a wonderful selection of books which are generally grouped by
geographic areas. We also have special sections such as Sea Stories,
Wars, Historical Thrillers, Writers, etc. The Sea Stories section is
anchored by Patrick O'Brian, Historical Thrillers by Alan Furst and
Great Britain by Phillippa Gregory, Edward Rutherford and Ken
Follett.

Just in time for gift giving we have some very hard to find complete
sets such as The Lymond Chronicles and The House of Niccolo by
Dorothy Dunnet, a University of Chicago press edition of The Raj
Quartet by Paul Scott, and three sets of books from Bethany House
Press, one set in Russia, one in Ireland and one in the Western US.
We are also featuring books from Ken Follett's new Century Trilogy.
In addition we have a large collection of the classic, historical
fiction writer, James Michener.

Shop Historical Fiction and learn more about history while
enjoying a good story. -Karen Neier & Suzanne Little

Home & Craft for holidays

Good enough to give (or books Santa would love to put under the tree)
is this month's feature from the Home & Craft section. This
includes books on woodworking, beauty, crafts, home improvement,
flower arranging, entertaining -- everything to make your home a more
special place all year long. There are some nice gems to check out
in the Better Book section too. May your Holidays be filled with good
times and good reads in all your favorite subjects! -Nancy Welch

Humor for December

Humor is contagious, usually 2 bookcases with 10 shelves this month
we have spread to 3 bookcases with 13 shelves. For convenience they
are described as Right Wing, Left Wing and Ultra Left Wing.

Right Wing, upper shelves: Back by popular demand, small, cheap,
colorful books that make excellent holiday gifts with the added
holiday enhancement: easily erasable prices (after purchase, before
wrapping).

Also included: Bill Bryson, A Short History of Everything

Oxford Press, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (a series that
runs from Beer to Shakespeare)

Right Wing, top right: A selection of quality cartoon books, such as
New Yorker anthologies.

Worthy of note: I've Decided I Want my Seat Back, Bill
Mauldlin, mostly Chicago Sun-Times from the period 1961 to 1965. You
step back into the history of that turbulent time via an astonishing
collection of highly opinionated cartoons. It seems he liked JFK a
lot more than de Gaulle.

Right Wing, top left: Autographed Books: does anybody care? I have no
idea as we have never had any before but now we have six so here's my
chance to find out and report back.

This month's English Literature minor masterpiece: Diary of a
Nobody, Grossmiths (first appeared in Punch 1892), a nondescript
Penguin paperback in which the nondescript Mr. Pooter invites you to
visit his family. And, Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome -- this is
surely a masterpiece of its genre.

Gift ideas elsewhere: For the animal lover -- 32 books ranging from
cats to zebras, the endless teenager -- 4 books on flatulence, the
politico -- 5 books related to President G. W. Bush, and for the
literary specialist - The Poetry of Richard Milhous Nixon.

Left Wing, top shelf: The Marx Brothers, Woody Allen and a raft of
people you have probably seen on TV....Also, look for a full shelf
covering the classic era from Robert Benchley up through the 40s,
50s and 60s. Of special note here is an excellent copy of Ervin
Cobb's Speaking of Operations, the 1912 edition!

And of course our old favorites including, Dave Barry (15), James
Thurber (10), Garrison Keillor (12), and O'Rourke (8) are well
represented.

Ultra Left Wing, lower 3 shelves: Basically an assortment of books
I could not get into the other two bookcases or moved to enhance the
gifting experience, such as novels described as humorous by experts
(New York Times, Orange County Register).

Cartoons- 99% of our cartoon collection is over in the Bargain Room,
and 99% of them will be only 50 cents!

"If Being is Being-less, obviously Nothing can't be up to much,"
Sartre, whose funeral was described at the time as "well attended".
-Nigel Jones

Philosophy for December

The Philosophy section is in the main aisle in two adjacent bookcases
with each bookcase having a slightly different focus.

Left Bookcase: This bookcase focuses on books by or about specific
philosophers. Many of the old favorites are here again this month
such as Aristotle (14), Dewey (5), Nietzsche (4), Plato (22), and
Thoreau, (11).

Noteworthy this month:

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience,
Emerson, Complete Writings, 1929 edition with some wear.

Plato, Dialogues of Plato, Volume 1, Benjamin Jowett, considered
to be one of the greatest translators of Plato.

Also, we have 10 books relating to Chinese philosophy, located on the
bottom shelf with two excellent books on Confucius, Sage of the
Road, and The Global Confucius.

Right Bookcase: This bookcase focuses on books about philosophy. This
includes dictionaries, encyclopedia sets, and single volumes from
sets, histories of philosophy or specific groups of philosophers or
schools of thought.

Top Shelf: Scanlon, What We Are to Each Other, Rorty,
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Martin Jay, Songs of
Experience, Lakoff, Philosophy in the Flesh, de Botton,
Consolations of Philosophy, Cornel West, Hope on a
Tightrope, Simon Blackburn, Think and Cohen, Glass,
Paper, Beans.

And, for all the philosophy books that have been well traveled don't
forget to visit the Bargain Room.

A thank you to Philosophy buyers -- as of November you have bought
over 1,000 books this year! Thanks for your support! -Nigel Jones

Book sets for the season

Have you always wanted to browse the Oxford English Dictionary and
explore the riches of the English language? On aisle 6 you can find
our two volume set of the Compact Edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary for only $60. Or have a look at other interesting sets
we are offering this month:

8 Volumes of Tales from Italian and Spanish (in English) for $15.

25 Volumes of 1931 Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Encyclopedia for $25

12 Volumes of 1927-28 The Works - Blacks Reader Service for $20

6 Volumes of 1930 Lowell Thomas Adventure Series for $10

15 Volumes of 1934 Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia for $50

Children's Room Great Book Selection & Giving Back

The donations for the Children's Room have been tremendous this past
month and the shelves are FULL! One exceptional donation was a large
number of books for kids in Hebrew. And, check out an entire shelf of
early reader books with holiday themes.

Interested in giving back? Look for a book donation basket for our
customers to place purchased books destined for Palo Alto's sister
city Palo in the Philippines. FOPAL is excited to be able to help
this devastated area rebuild their destroyed library. Long-time
volunteer Joe Mandell is spearheading this effort as well as
assisting with shipping our generous book donation. Thanks,
Children's Room volunteers for your time helping create and
promote this deserving endeavor!

Children's Room: Arushi's recommendations

Once upon a time, The Giver by Lois Lowry was thought of as such a
controversial book that schools were encouraged not to read it to
their students...but now, people appreciate the true meaning of it.
In a fictional society, everything is controlled and everyone's
lives are planned out by receiving an Assignment on the day of the
Ceremony of the Twelves. Unlike the other Twelves, Jonas does not
have a clue about what his Assignment might be, and by the time
December comes around, Jonas is extremely apprehensive. In the
Ceremony, Jonas's name is skipped! It turns out that he has been
greatly honored by the job of the Receiver of Memory. But when Jonas
starts his Assignment, he starts to realize that his "perfect"
community might not be that perfect after all. Filled with
extraordinary social commentary, The Giver is a wonderful book
cleverly sewing together Lois Lowry's thoughts on our society today
and Jonas's path to finding a place where he belongs.

Everyone loves mystery books, and everyone loves it when intriguing
plots lead in unexpected directions, right? Well, the Nancy Drew
series by Carolyn Keene is just that. These books feature a young
sleuth named, coincidentally, Nancy Drew, whose passion for solving
mysteries often lead to trouble for her and her sidekicks, Bess and
George. Nancy Drew or her friends are kidnapped, rescued, tied up,
and attempted to be killed repeatedly on her quest to bring justice
to the world. Even the most puzzling mysteries can be solved by the
clever and witty Nancy Drew! The style of writing and the context of
this series might be a little vintage, and there are new and revised
Nancy Drew books available, but I prefer reading these ones because
of their originality. Carolyn Keene (or whoever is using that
pseudonym) vividly describes the exciting adventures of Nancy Drew
in the Nancy Drew series.

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